The present invention relates to a system for transporting bobbins between yarn processing machines, and more particularly to a system for transporting bobbins between two machines in combination with a device between the machines for temporarily storing bobbins during transfer.
Transport systems are known for transporting bobbins between textile machines and are known to include temporary storage means to accumulate the supply of bobbins and thereby maintain a supply during temporary fluctuations in the production rates of the machines. For example, German Patent document A 22 27 105 discloses a system for transporting bobbins between a plurality of fly frames and a relatively much larger plurality of ring spinning machines. More specifically, the disclosed transport system transports full bobbins from the fly frames to the ring spinning machines and returns empty bobbins from the ring spinning machines to the fly frames. The disclosed transport system can be provided with a storage apparatus positioned adjacent the longitudinal ends of the ring spinning machines to serve as temporary storage for the bobbins during their travel between the fly frames and the ring spinning machines. The storage apparatus consists of a plurality of parallel oriented rails or tracks on to which the bobbins are transferred. However, these storage apparatus rails, on which the bobbins can be temporarily stored, require a considerable amount of additional track lengths and, oftentimes, the space requirements of these temporary storage rails exceed the space available in the areas adjacent the ring spinning machines.
Accordingly, the need exists for a transport system for bobbins for transporting bobbins to and from temporary storage apparatus positioned between textile processing machines.